Plus the democratic partys big dilemma. Do they have to decide between appealing to aggressives or appealing to democratic party. T this is mtp daily and it starts right now. Good evening, im chuck todd here in new york city. Welcome to mtp daily. If someone tried to interfere in the u. S. Election, it would be a big story. But what if they were doing it to try to keep a certain person from winning, and what if they got caught, and what if the incoming president didnt believe a word of it. What would your reaction be . Heres the reaction. Crickets, of sorts. The cia has said they now believe with a high level of confidence, and they have hard evidence to prove the following, that russian president Vladimir Putin was covertly involved to interfere in the president ial election, first as a vendetta against clinton, then as a campaign to destroy american credibility when it comes to american democracy. In 1972, watergate started when a couple burglars opened a file cabinet. Now were talking about an entire arm of democracy by a foreign foe. There is little dispute that it was meant to hurt clintons candidacy, and there is little dispute that it did to a point. A putin spokesman today told the ap that it is laughable nonsense. Whats interesting there is the russians hit the media, not the government sources behind it. Trumps transition did not dispute the story when it first broke. Trump tweeted this. If russia or some other entity was hacking, why did the white house wait so long to react . Why did they only complain after hillary lost . Thats a good question and well look into it. It seemed to throw a big caution flag into this congress. It also convinced Trump Supporters that the story is bogus. Weve seen no stories from congressional committees today, no calls from special leaders for a special investigation, and that much reaction from Republican Leaders like Mitch Mcconnell or paul ryan today, either. But it has lit a fire under speaker Lindsey Graham. Graham just went public that russia hacked him back in june. Today he went right after trump. I am 100 certain that the russians hacked into podestas emails, the dnc and other political organizations. Most of the information that was released was unfavorable to clinton, not trump. Here is president trumps dilemma. What are you going to do . If you dont believe the russians were involved in interfering with our election, then im really troubled by that. The nbc reporting team that broke this story. Ken delaney is our National Security reporter. Big story, cynthia and ken. Let me start with this. Its incredible scoop that we have that putin was intimately involved with this. Where is congress on this . And have they been briefed on this yet . Well, we asked today adam schiff, whether congress has been briefed on putins involvement and he declined to answer that question. The house top democrat in the house Intelligence Committee. Correct. And he said he couldnt comment on whether or not they have been briefed. But i think its pretty clear the leaders know. Its also pretty clear the white house knew. Certainly they had drawn that conclusion at least a month before their now famous october 7th statement because the white house did confirm that president obama had directly confronted Vladimir Putin about this at the g20 in early september. Ken, help me with some intel speak here. High confidence. You know, if youre a layman reading this in the report, high confidence, okay, whatever that means. But high confidence has a special place when it comes to a cia report. Explain. Absolutely, chuck. Its about as high i mean, its about as firm as they can get in terms of intelligence assessment. It means, as you said in the introduction, they have more of a supposition, they have significant evidence that what they know is true. They must have hard sourcing. Its not just a computer did this and a computer did that. They have something more. Is that fair to say . And we reported last night that there were human intelligence was a part of this, both diplomatic and heres some from our allies. Actual spies. Spies. Physical human beings. Correct. Lets address Donald Trumps question. Why didnt president obama Say Something before the election . Well, and of course he did, right . The interesting thing is the Intelligence Committee viewed that october 7 statement as a very dramatic development. All 27 television agencies endorsing this conclusion. But it sort of didnt break through. It wasnt treated with the significance that maybe its being treated now. Toda you had the white house saying we basically said it was putin, we said the highest levels of the russian government. Cynthia, i remember vividly when president obama came out and accused them of a sony hack. He actually took a story from the sidelines and he said, no. We need to zero in and put the full camera on this story. He didnt do that. What you say, chuck, is so telling. The Intelligence Community viewed this as rather dramatic. It was a paper statement from intelligence officials. It was not the president of the United States going on television saying, this matters, listen up. Nor did the president , for that matter, go on congress and say this is serious, to the american people. Serious enough we ought to consider sanctions, some sort of overaction. We dont know entirely, but we intend to find out, what covert activities have been or are going to be taken regarding this. We did report last night that the u. S. Intelligence community has dug very deeply into Vladimir Putins finances. Its interesting on this, and ken, i want to bring you back into this conversation. I had an interview with Vice President joe biden, and i th k think it wasnt just will putin know when we act. When we know, and he said i hope not. What does the Intelligence Community think of that . Dont you need to show the world what were capable of in an instance like this . Thats a great point. Hey, this is an espionage matter, this is an intelligence matter between great powers, we should keep this all quiet. Theres others saying, no, this crosses a line. This is russia interfering in american democracy. This is something we should g public with and take public. Lets remember one thing. The russians did not want to get into a tit for tat game. Yet if you dont take any kind of public action how do you stop them . Let me give you a. Theres foam. There are people who say you guys are. They cant reveal themselves. They would go to jail for revealing classified information. And thats the way theyve been able to say well show your work. Thats the problem, none of us want to do anonymous stories. There are some stories you cant tell if you just rely on people who will go on the record. So yeah, the american public, and this is part of the issue. Part of the issue and the credibility of this issue, i think there has been a problem by linking together what the Intelligence Community absolutely certainly knew and the speculation of what that impact was. I think what we can say for certain, the Intelligence Community agrees that the russians were involved in this and that Vladimir Putin was directing it. Now, whether or not they succeeded and what their motives were have been widely debated. When you link these together, it starts to get skeptical and political. How would like to prove this negative . I think people are absolutely right to be skeptical of anonymous intelligence sources. We go back to iraq, wmd, people were sure of the sources at that time, too. Thats why im really glad the administration is saying there will be a Public Accounting of this, Public Disclosure of this before obama leaves office. And more than a colin powell moment, show your work. And donald trump says why so late . Well find the answer to that question tonight, perhaps, on the nbc nightly news . Lets hope. Thank you so much, kim delaney. By someone who helped write the book on Vladimir Putin. Not literally or seriously since we have to balance that literal word, fiona hill. She is coauthor of mr. Putin, operative in the kremlin and is now a senior fellow at brookings. Fiona, let me start with our repo report. Does it surprise you we have sources saying Vladimir Putin was personally involved with this . I take it from how you wrote your book, it wouldnt surprise you. Do you know anything beyond that . I said it wouldnt surprise me, chuck. I do not know anything beyond that, so let me state that at the outset. However, having talked to an awful lot of people myself over the last several weeks and months that this story has played out, i think we can be fairly confident as the Intelligence Services state that we can, that we have an awful lot of information that has led us to the conclusions that are being stated. One of the questions youve been raising in the discussion with cynthia and ken is why did this take so long . I think this is actually a sign that we can have confidence in this information. In previous instances where there has been a lot of criticism of intelligence and of conclusions, for example, on iraq and weapons of mass destruction which president elect trump has pointed to very explicitly, there has been a lot of pressure to rush to judgment. Theres bayne lot of political pressure on the intelligence agencies to come forward with conclusions they werent drread to make. In this case theyve on yusly spent a lot of time passing information from all kinds of different sources, from private sources to the kind of human intelligence cynthia and ken have just been talking about, to, frankly, the work of investigative journalists. This is why weve got to this point in december where theres been many months of this unfolding. So im not at all surprised by where we are, but i dont have any information personally beyond what we already know and i think it will be very interesting how this plays out. Explain sorry, chuck. I want to go to what appears to be the motivation for putin. He firmly believes that Hillary Clinton personally, its almost more so than the american government, that Hillary Clinton personally was trying to mess or did mess with the parliamentary elections in russia. Is there any evidence of that, number one . And number two, is this truly the driver of this for putin . Its a very interesting thing. President putin made those accusations very openly in response to protests that emerged in 2011 and 2012 against russian parliamentary elections in december 2011 and in the runup to his own president ial reelection in 2012. He did not provide any evidence at the time but he made a very flat assertion that Hillary Clinton and the state department had been very much involved in this. Ever since that time, we have really seen a very negative reaction on the part of putin personally and the political structures in russia toward Hillary Clinton. Theyve made no secret of the fact whatsoever that they did not want to see her as president of the United States. So i certainly think we can be confident that theres something of a vengeance motive behind this. I think more broadly, russia has been very disturbed and putin himself that the United States might interfere in their elections. Putin has to go for reelection again sometime in 2018. There is a lot of speculation if he plans to go for yet another president ial term of six years, whether he might hand the baton to someone else or what might happen with the system. You can be sure they want to preempt the idea of any kind of external influence in their election, so there could an element that they primped or that they think we might do something. Final question for you. What would sting . What kind of response from the United States thats within reason that would sting putin . There are a whole variety of things. One of the things we have to bear in mind, however, theyve had quite a significant advantage of the United States at the moment, ever since Edward Snowden appearedn moscow. Theyve been able to reveal a lot of information on the United States intelligence capabilities. You are implying snowden is being helpful to them. Are you . I think hes become helpful by his employment there, and the impact his revelations made on the intelligence surfaces. It got them on the defensive in the United States, and it also created a rift between the u. S. Intelligence services and the loss of the allied Intelligence Services, especially in europe. Might be an indication that the United States is spying on their friends. It also has given the russians pretty much of an idea of what the United States might be capable of. So i think, you know, its going to be very difficult for the United States to share something retaliatory. That may be one of the reasons the white house is being reticent, but there are certain capabilities. Russia is clearly worried about interference in its own political system. Its clearly worried about the kinds of other attacks weve talked about that might have been denial of service, or attacks within the infrastructure. You might remember recently theyve come down hard on microsoft, even going so far as to potentially ban bill gates from visiting russia. Theyre very concerned about this kind of activity, so they were very worried there might be an escalating response. This might give them an opportunity to have a very firm discussion with russia saying, look, you know what were capable of, is this really what you want to have happen . And then externally, perhaps not internally, the questions about the personal Financial Holdings of Vladimir Putin and people around him which clearly is a soft spot, certainly in a larger International Arena where there is also scrutiny about dealings and having business dealings with russia at this particular juncture. And who knows how the people of russia would react to finding out just how wealthy he is. Exactly. Fi oona hill, i could go on t i have to leave it there. Were going to have much more on this bombshell story just ahead. What did our government know about russias interference and when did they know it . Well dig deeper into the timeline. Stay tuned. See ya next year. 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Dont start humira if you have an infection. If youre still just managing your symptoms, talk with your gastroenterologist about humira. With hira, remission is possie. Considering it was about meddling in the election. Let me bring in the panel. You know, this timeline, and it was interesting, beth. They talked about the 17 intelligence agencies. I think jeh johnson did some tv the day they put out the statement. His primary goal that day, if im not mistaken, was dont worry, the election systems are fine. We were told repeatedly the election systems were fine, that the machines were not compromised, that people werent going to hack into them. That wasnt the issue, though. Clearly not. Just what you were saying before, the administration was so bent on not appearing to be meddling in the election. It allowed this meddling to happen. From last summer, donald trump started talking about a rigged election. He started saying it was going to be rigged. Who knew it was rigged against the democrat . But he raised that issue, and obama being the kind of person he is, the kind of leader he is, hes very rational, and he decided rather than to act in a way that would make a dramatic inclusion in the election, he stepped back and played that rational role, and he can perhaps be wondering why he did that now. Cornell, adam schiff said it on my show on sunday when he said he thought president obama should have said something sooner, but more import